Coronary artery disease is commonly treated by relatively non-invasive techniques such as percutaneous translumenal coronary angioplasty (PTCA). Conventional PTCA is well known in the art and typically involves the use of a balloon catheter, possibly in combination with other intravascular devices such as a guide wire and a guide catheter. A typical balloon catheter has an elongate shaft with a balloon attached to its distal end and a manifold attached to its proximal end. In use, the balloon catheter is advanced into a guide catheter and over a guide wire such that the balloon is positioned adjacent a restriction in a diseased coronary artery. The balloon is then inflated and the restriction in the vessel is opened.
Guide catheters typically include an elongate tube with a relatively straight proximal section and a shaped (e.g., curved) distal section. The distal section is shaped to navigate over the aortic arch and seat in the ostium of either the right or left coronary artery. The size and shape of the distal section is dictated in part by the size of the aortic root, the location of the ostium and the take-off angle of the coronary artery. The size and shape of the distal section may affect the ability of the treating physician to access a particular coronary artery, the ease of gaining such access and the back-up support provided to devices passing inside the catheter once access is established.
The right coronary artery is commonly accessed using either a Judkins Right (JR), a Voda Right (VR), an Amplatz Right (AR), a Hockey Stick (HS) or a Multipurpose (MP) catheter, all of which are well known in the art. Although all of these curve styles offer a varying degree of back-up support and catheter tip orientation, no single curve style provides both optimal back-up support and optimal catheter tip orientation combined with controlled tip manipulation.